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>> Natali Del Conte: EBay gets rid of Skype, Microsoft updates Exchange, and how to get evicted from your apartment on Facebook. It's Wednesday, April 15th. I'm Natali Del Conte, and it's time to get Loaded.
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>> Natali Del Conte: Looks like eBay decided to lose Skype after all. EBay said Tuesday that they plan to separate both companies through a public offering of Skype shares in the first half of next year. EBay acquired Skype in 2005 for 4.1 billion dollars, and the two companies were never really able to fully integrate as planned. Yesterday, eBay announced that it was losing stumbling upon. It's unclear how Skype will stand on its own in this market, but we'll wait and see. We have some information on Android 1.5. From what we hear based on an early look at the software-development kit, the next version of the OS will offer soft keyboards, home screen widgets, and speech recognition. Current phones like the G1 should be able to support all the new features the next update will offer, and developers will even be able to access past versions of Android from 1SDK. Google says we can expect a polished version by the end of the month. Circuit City is entering the final leg of its bankruptcy by offering bids for its intellectual properties which include its brand, logos, and trademarks. On March 8th, the company shut down the last of its 567 stores and laid off 34,000 workers after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November. System X seems to be in lead contention to buy the rights to the Circuit City brand. They are best known for the Tiger Direct brand and recently acquired the CompUSA brand after it went bankrupt. We'll see if Circuit City can get resurrected as a store like it's fallen cousin CompUSA. I don't know, but I would like to see some competition for Best Buy. Amazon seems to have caused an uproar by what they're saying now was just a glitch. Following Monday's news that the company had removed homosexual content from its book sales rankings because it was filed as adult. People took to Twitter to voice their frustrations. Amazon claims the glitch affected all book sales and is currently fixing the problem. Microsoft will be releasing updates to its venerable Exchange e-mail server. Exchange 2010 sounds like an Isaac Asimov book, but it's not. It will feature the ability to mute an e-mail conversation thread. This is a God-send. Being part of any corporation means inevitably that I get inundated with e-mails that I have nothing to do with, and of course, the important e-mails get buried under the clutter. In addition, Microsoft is adding Mail Tips to Exchange. Think of it as an advanced version of Google's Goggles. Mail Tips will warn the user if they are about to send a potentially embarrassing e-mail such as to a large distribution list or an attachment that's outside the corporate firewall. Pretty cool stuff. Now, if it could just add a feature that auto responds to all my e-mail with appropriate and witty responses, I'll be happy. My hopes of getting the iPhone on a carrier other than AT&T are not looking good. AT&T is looking to extend its exclusive agreement with Apple to sell the iPhone from 2010 to 2011. No one has commented on this news yet, but usually where there is smoke, there is fire, especially when it comes to iPhone. Nominations from the annual Webby Awards were announced yesterday, and big media dominated the pack. The "New York Times" received 13 nominations, NBC.com has 12, and the Onion which, I guess we can call big media, has 8. Of course, there are plenty of standouts like Paris Hilton responds to McCain ad from last year's elections, and Children's Hospital on the WB.com. I am proud to say that CNET TV also received a nomination. Expect coverage of the Web Sheet on June 8th when the winners will be announced. Also on June 8th, Nintendo will release the Wii Motion Plus as a $20 add on. For those of you who don't remember, the Wii Motion Plus is an attachment that goes on the Wii remote that extends its motion detecting capabilities. All told, a fully-equipped remote with a Nunchuk and now Motion Plus will set you back $80. Only games coded to take advantage of the Motion Plus will notice any improvement in motion sensing, but Nintendo already has a game up its sleeve. Wii "Sports Resort" will go on sale for $49.99 on July 26th and is a follow up to the highest-selling Wii game of all time, Wii "Sports". Mostly because it came bundled with every system. Wii "Sports Resort" will feature volleyball, sword dueling, and water scooter racing. The YouTube Symphony will take the stage at Carnegie Hall tonight. This is the group of 90 musicians from around the world who auditioned over YouTube. We reported the search for these musicians back in December. They were selected from over 30 countries. They practiced over YouTube but only got to rehearse in person with San Francisco Symphony Conductor Michael Tilton Thomas for three days this week. The final performance will be available on YouTube tomorrow at youtube.com/symphony. If you work in one of those old-school offices that doesn't allow camera phones, you can now opt for the new Sprint Curve that comes without the camera. The new Blackberry Curve 8350i costs $150 with a two-year contract. The absence of the two megapixel camera is really its only new feature. It otherwise has standard Curve fare, Nextel's direct connect push-to-talk services, WiFi, and GPS. If you rent your apartment, you probably should not post pictures of you and your friends trashing it on Facebook. A woman in Britain rented out the flat she owned to what she thought were some nice kids. Then one day she was surfing around Facebook and saw some rowdy photos of the same nice kids trashing the place, dancing on the furniture, throwing booze around. You know, the usual Facebook party photo fare. She tried to evict them, but they left without paying their rent. Now, the police are involved. Bad Facebook etiquette and bad renter etiquette. The landlord called the tenants "massive chads". I had to look that one up, but from what I gather, it kind of means thugs. Those are your headlines for today, but I will see you tomorrow with more. Thank you for watching. I'm Natali Del Conte with CNET TV, and you've just been Loaded.
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